Teaching, Admonishing, Thanking
As students of the Word and ministers called to serve through music, we are familiar with God’s mandates in the Bible for us to respond to him though singing, making melody, joyful noises, etc. (Ps 96, Ps 33, Ps 100). If you were to ask any biblically-minded minister of music the central purpose of worship, they will likely give the same reason to believers’ motivation for most everything in life–“to give glory to God.” (Amen!) God is worthy, and for his pleasure everything was created (Rev 4:11); therefore, our worship and very lives first and foremost should glorify God. What then is so special about congregational singing? Perhaps one of the greatest insights we have into the purpose and importance of congregational worship is found in Paul’s epistle to the Colossians.
Paul first establishes Christ’s preeminence and the importance of being made alive in him. He then begins to emphasize the transformative nature that believers now experience and how it should shape our daily lives, fellowship with other believers, and corporate worship. Specifically, Colossians 3:16 states, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” What fantastic parameters and motivations for corporate worship!
First, it is amazing how much Scripture and theology can be taught (and learned) not only through the public preaching and teaching of the Word, but also through our songs of worship. Secondly, it can correct our misinformed ideas of God’s characteristics, biblical truths, and the gospel. Finally, it provides an opportunity to focus on and celebrate together God’s faithfulness as a body of believers, with thankfulness in our hearts.
However, if we are not diligent facilitators of what is being sung (and taught), these very opportunities may be missed. First, there are plenty of songs sung in churches today which teach half truths with vague and meaningless lyrics. Secondly, they can take the focus away from God’s worthiness, with an emphasis on man-centeredness by exalting emotional experience. And finally, if our corporate worship becomes a time of introspective individualism, we miss out on the beauty of unity as believers. Instead of a time of corporate thanksgiving, we become preoccupied as to whether or not the music personally moved us.
While this is no new struggle for recent generations, I do see one particular contributing (or possibly reactive) factor within my very own community. The byline of our local Christian radio station is, “The Positive Difference.” Its slogan: “Encouraging and uplifting music.” (The purpose of this blog entry is neither to demean or question the value of Christian radio nor Christian sub-culture.) However, I will say there are ramifications for the way pop “Christian” songs and songs written for corporate worship are integrated together for the purpose to “encourage and uplift.” The line becomes blurred when playlists simultaneously include both songs with a “positive” message and songs written for corporate response to God without differentiation. To the listener, worship songs now have a pragmatic purpose — they had better encourage and uplift me. This becomes evident in the set lists of many churches on Sunday mornings. Instead of corporate worship being a time to teach, admonish, and give thanks to God, it lacks substance and can easily turn the focus to ourselves.
The answer is not to get rid of contemporary Christian radio or return to singing solely from hymnals in our churches. However, some of the teaching and admonishing we as ministers may be called to is helping our congregations understand the purpose and importance of Christ-centered, gospel-saturated, and Scripture-based worship (not simply singing radio hits). While there is nothing intrinsically wrong with uplifting music, we must strive for much more than this during corporate worship. God has gifted many modern worship song writers who endeavor to help the church keep such a focus. God has also called us as shepherds to guard his flock from blindly following a worldly model of self-centered worship, being mindful of what we are singing (and therefore teaching). We must be students of the “word of Christ,” singing and making melody in order to teach, admonish, and give thanks to our God who is worthy of all praise and glory.
